Since the formation of the European
Union, the possibility of democracy through the party political
system is now even more remote than ever. The EU functions at a
level beyond the legitimacy of the local party system, and imposes
legislation on the national governments, creating a power more remote
and disconnected from the people than ever before. National
governments are now simply bureaucratic organisations that implement
policies of that greater bureaucratic institution, the EU. This in
turn creates an even greater disconnect between the political class
and the people.
The various parties have lost any real difference,
they are merely bureaucratic bodies vying with each for the power to
manage the national bureaucratic institution, within the terms laid
down by the EU. Our so called democracy. based on the party political
system, is not about the party asking the people what they want, but
more a matter of telling the people what they will get. Hardly
democracy. The party political system is depoliticised at the
national level, we might be able to protest against, and influence,
the building of a motorway going through a public park, but the
fundamental shape of our society is governed by that higher
bureaucratic institution, the EU. Which in turn moves in the
direction dictated by the “economy” and the needs of the
transnational corporations. This disconnect between the people and
the political parties creates ever more disillusionment and
scepticism among the ordinary people.
Hopefully this will be fertile
ground for the desire to control our own lives and to determine the
shape of our society. Perhaps our anger, disenchantment, scepticism,
disillusionment and frustration at a system that doesn't engage with
us, yet controls our lives to our detriment, will engender the birth
of true democracy. Whatever, it will have to be outside the present
system of political parties and freed from the strangle hold of the
“economy” and its beneficiaries and drivers, the transnational corporations.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
